screen writing

Hello, I entered into a screen writing competition with NYCmidnight and am working on the second draft of my script. I have a question though that I haven't been able to find an answer too and was hoping the fellow hubbers might have some insight on. When you are writing a character with an accent should you write his lines indicating his accent every time he speaks or just the first initial introduction of the character? The competition rules say a maximum of eight pages and if I have to write (french accent) under his name every time the guy opens his mouth it's going to steal a lot of writing space.

The following shamelessly lifted from the blog of a Hollywood Talent Agent:

“Dialogue with an Accent

"It is fine to have a character that speaks with an accent or slang.

"When you first introduced the character, let the reader know that they “speak with a strong southern accent.” However, do not write the dialogue with the accent.

"Here is an example. Let’s pretend we are writing a story about an uneducated, runaway slave in the pre-civil war South. We want the Runaway Slave to greet another person he meets. In reality, the dialogue would sound like this.

"'Hows ya doin’ toda suh?'

"However, you should never write the dialogue like that. Instead, introduce the character and tell us that the “runaway slave speaks with a strong southern accent.” Then write the line without the accent.

“'How are you doing today sir?'

"The actor and dialect teacher will create the accent. It is very difficult to read a script where dialogue is written with an accent. It breaks the flow of the script. The reader will imagine the southern dialect.

I read a book by a kind of famous author, Jan Karon, called Home to Holly Springs. She "wrote in" the heavy accents throughout the entire book. Like: 'Y'all sho do tawk funny.' I hated it... resented it so much.... could not wait for that book to end. I feel like your audience is intelligent enough to understand "He spoke with a heavy southern drawl." If they're not... then what does that say about you as a writer? lol... IDK, it's up to you, it's just my personal preference not to have a map drawn out for me in movies or books. Seeing as yours is a screenplay, I would imagine they would have a dialogue coach help the actor with the correct accent, but since the screenplay itself doesn't really have an actual audience, it seems like it would just slow your reader(s) down.

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